Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz came to Western Pennsylvania Tuesday to appeal to rural and urban voters alike in a series of stops across the region. And he had a few jokes at Donald Trump's expense along the way.
Walz's tour of the area included an afternoon stop at a Lawrence County farm, followed by scheduled stops in Butler County and a rally and fundraiser in Pittsburgh.
During an afternoon speech at a farm just outside Volant, Walz sought to convince rural voters that former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, "take a hell of a lot of their voters for granted." That, he said, was proven, "by the policies they put out that don't do a damn thing for rural Pennsylvania ... Or any place else in this country."
Walz rolled out an agenda for rural America devised by the campaign of his presidential running mate, Kamala Harris. That plan would encourage more doctors, nurses and other health care professionals by offering more scholarships and federal loan repayment programs for those who work in rural or tribal areas. It includes federal aid for residencies in rural hospitals and plans for programs to introduce school students to medical careers.
Their plan also would preserve Medicare eligibility for "telehealth" visits, which allow patients to consult with doctors remotely: That move would have to come before the Democrats, if elected, took office, as the program is set to expire at the end of this year. But Harris and Walz would seek to fund access to the technology needed for such services for rural clinics. Their plan also would address "ambulance deserts" — places where paramedics are stationed more than a 25-minute drive away — with added training and support for volunteer ambulance services.
Sketching out the proposal's efforts to address ambulance shortages and its other key components, Walz called it "a plan to rejuvenate rural America ... I'm damn proud of it."
By contrast, he accused Trump and Vance of "cosplaying" and merely pretending to have the interest of rural and working-class people at heart.
Trump, he said, "doesn't know a damn thing about farming... But the people behind him do."
And those people include "venture capitalists who don't give one damn about walking the land but are happy to take the profit from it," he added.
Playing up his own credibility as the governor of a farm state, Walz joked that Minnesota's three food groups are dairy, pork and turkeys. He also professed his own skill with a shotgun and argued that he and Harris — who has also said she owns a firearm — may be the first Democratic ticket to have two gun owners.
Meanwhile, he said of Trump, "You know the 34 felonies? He can't pass a background check."
"We're not going to allow them to make this about the Second Amendment," Walz said — even as he pledged Democrats would do more to address gun violence.
Walz also denounced Vance and Trump for spreading falsehoods about immigrants in Charleroi and Springfield, Ohio, and he characterized immigrants as merely trying to build a better life for themselves.
"No one was asking for what they were bringing but they brought it ... and told lies about the people living in these communities — people who were only trying to do an honest day's work," he said.
The location was Rick Telesz's farm, which hosted a visit by Jill Biden during the 2020 campaign. Biden later adopted a cat, Willow, from the farm after it strolled across the stage during her appearance. Walz made no mention of fracking — royalties from which help some farmers in the region — but he said farmers should benefit from "farming wind" on their land, as the United States pursues an all-inclusive energy policy.
A group of 20 Trump supporters was on hand to greet Walz at brief lunch stop in a cafe just outside Valencia, Butler County. The demonstrators chanted "Trump! Trump! Trump!" and "USA!" as Walz spoke with supporters in the cafe, where he said the polices he and Harris were advocating for would help "The folks who might be across the street."
Walz sounded similar themes in an early-evening appearance at Acrisure Stadium's Great Hall in the city's North Side, though he changed the plaid shirt he'd worn at the farm for a blazer.
The crowd there — many of them holding "Coach" signs in honor of Walz's previous work as a high school football coach — cheered enthusiastically as the Pittsburgh Steelers' late-game anthem "Renegade" played before Walz took the stage. And Walz told them that supporters needed to have their game faces on before Election Day.
"In this building, you don't win the Super Bowl just on that day," he said. "You win the Super Bowl months before."
Walz laced his remarks with digs at Trump, including some derisive references to a recent "town hall" event in which Trump abandoned a plan to take questions from supporters, and spent more than half an hour playing music and semi-dancing to it instead.
“If this was your grandfather, you would take the keys away," Walz said.
But he also struck a warning there that had been absent from his speech in Lawrence County. Trump could appoint another two or three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said — adding to the majority that overturned constitutional protections for abortion rights in 2022.
"They'll be adjudicating the laws in this country when your children are my age, nearly," he said.
Early in his remarks a handful of demonstrators inside the event appeared to chant "Arms embargo now!" — an apparent call on the U.S. to withhold military support from Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza. They were led out of the event without incident.
Both parties consider Pennsylvania a crucial battleground state this fall, and Western Pennsylvania is seen as a key front in that fight. As the governor of Minnesota, Walz has been Harris' top surrogate in rural areas, and on a previous to the region spent part of an afternoon in a photo-op friendly visit to a Fayette County farm. Tuesday's visit, by contrast, delivered a more robust discussion of policy.
On the GOP side, meanwhile, Vance visited Johnstown this past week, and on Tuesday morning announced that he would deliver remarks Thursday in Downtown Pittsburgh. Trump, too, is scheduled to return to the region to hold a rally Saturday in Latrobe.
Polling has generally showed the race within the state is within the margin of error.
Walz addressed the state of the race at a private Squirrel HIll fundraiser Tuesday evening.
"I have to tell you, this thing is going to be close," he told attendees. "I wish that wasn't the case. But you know what? ... We're doing the work. We're going everywhere."
